Comments

Cathleen, I was wondering if you could ask Father Reginald if this statement is True regarding the Filioque: If we believe in the UNITY of God, The Father, The Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is, seen and unseen AND one Lord, Jesus Christ, The Only Son of God, eternally begotten of The Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, begotten not made, ONE IN BEING, with the Father...THEN, in order to be THE TRINITY, The Holy Spirit must be The Love Between The Father and The Son and must proceed from The Father and The Son, to begin with.

Apropos the decline of Latin, I came across this clever riposte in wikipedia:In the popular UK sitcom Yes Minister, Prime Minister James Hacker suggests to civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby that hardly anyone uses Latin nowadays. Sir Humphrey responds with Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempora_mutanturI searched wikepedia because I wanted to find the source behind an interesting puzzle put to Stephen Dedalus in the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Which is correct --Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis(Circumstances change us and we change in them)orTempora mutantur et nos mutamur(Circumstances change and we change with them)?Unfortunately, Dedalus doesnt have a chance to answer.When he regains his strength perhaps Fr Foster can enlighten us.

Cathleen, you have mentioned that you have great Respect for Father Foster. I thought maybe a good place to begin " a renaissance in Latin", would be to start with the Filioque, which for some, seems to be lost in translation.

Patrick,Are you sure the first one isn't tempora mutant nos, ,, or tempora mutantur a nobis. . to my eye, at least, the muntanur and the nos don't seem to me to work together, but then I'm not Fr. Foster.Anyone else?Joe K. (if you'r enot trapped in bubble wrap) or Joseph G?

It's an old adage and reads: Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis." The verb "muto" can be used intransitively, but to judge from Lewis and Short, this is rarer than its transitive use, which is probably why it was used in the passive voice. "Tempora mutantur" is found a good number of times in Latin Migne. Here is the entry from L and S: http://old.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.... Enjoy.

Cathleen,This may be redundant, given Fr Komonchak's comment. But FWIW:The Latin text I quoted is as given in Joyce (and many other places) and so I presume the real question is about the proper translation of the quoted Latin and not whether the Latin should be altered. The wikipedia link gives several translations, using both active and passive forms.I took the translations I used from Joyce Annotated (by Don Gifford). Incidentally, he claims the second Latin version is metrically correct according to Dilectus which was a phrase book of learned Latin quotations. A similar statement was attributed to Ovid.Its interesting that the Latin puzzle was posed in Cork pubs and coffee houses by cronies of Stephens father -- O tempora, O mores!I like some of the less elegant Latin in Ch V of the Portrait:Nos ad manum ballum jocabimus.Lets go play handball.Super spottumOn this very spotQuis est in malo humore...ego aut vos?Which one is in a bad mood...me or you?

I hope this is not out of place here.With the retirement of Father Joseph Komonchak, CUA will be missing one of its best scholars and most esteemed teachers. His contribution to the Church in the US, and well beyond, has been deep and lasting. And I am sure that all join me in the hope that that immense contribution will continue through many years to come! Thanks, and all strength to your arm, Professor Komonchak, priest and scholar!

St. Augustine might not have agreed with the adage. In fact, he might have written it: "Mutamur nos, et tempora mutantur in nobis." I say this on the basis of brief comments of his in two different sermons:You say, The times are troubling, the times are serious, the times are wretched. Live well, and you change the times. By living well you change the times and you have nothing to complain about. (Vivendo bene tempora mutatis, et non habetis unde murmuretis.)Evils abound, and God has willed that evils abound. Would that evil people didnt abound, and evils would not abound. Bad times, wearisome times, people say. Let us live well, and the times are good. We are the times: such as we are, so are the times. (Nos sumus tempora: quales sumus, talia sunt tempora.)

Does no one here recognize a dactylic hexameter? Tempora mutantur nos et mutantur in illis has to be correct. The pattern is dactyl spondee spondee spondee dactyl spondee, with a caesura dividing the third spondee. The alternative Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis is unmetrical. I don't think "muto" is ever intransitive, i.e., has medial force, in Latin. It is a frequentative of moueo, which behaves in like manner.

CathleenYou could also apply the principle of the more difficult reading (lectio difficilior) being the more likely one. In this case the change from Tempora mutantur nos et mutantur in illis to the more prosaic Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis is much more likely than the reverse. Mistakes in the citation of poetry tend toward prose order.